A heavyweight CMOS image sensor (CIS) packaging firm will be born in Taiwan soon, as Tong Hsing Electronic Industries, a handset CIS backend and wafer reconstruction specialist, has announced plans to fully acquire automotive CIS packager Kingpak Technology, seeking to increase its economies of scale through a larger product portfolio and strengthen its competitiveness in the market.
Tong Hsing said in a statement that it will acquire a 100% stake in Kingpak through a share-swap deal set to be completed by June 30, 2020, with the latter to be delisted from the Taipei Exchange after officially becoming a wholly-owned unit of the former.
After the merger, the expanded Tong Hsing is expected to better seize the emerging opportunities in the smartphone, advanced driving, IoT, the Internet of Vehicles, VR and AR markets, industry sources said.
Tong Hsing is dedicated to handset CIS packaging and wafer reconstruction with OmniVision and European CIS makers as major clients, while Kingpak now holds a 70% share of the global automotive CIS packaging market with ON Semiconductor and Sony among its main customers, the sources said, adding that the high complementarity of their clients and products is the main driver behind the merger.
Tong Hsing chairman Pierre Chen, concurrently chairman of passive components maker Yageo, has been deemed a major pusher behind the merger.
He told the press that the growth momentum of the deal can hardly be exactly calculated immediately but double-digit revenue increases could be expected. He continued that through the combination, both firms will be able to better grasp business opportunities from the handset and automotive markets in the short to long term.
The ever-growing demand from the handset and automotive sectors has prompted major CIS suppliers Sony, OminiVision and On-Semi to step up capacity expansions, providing revenue growth momentum for the expanded Tong Hsing, industry sources said.
Article translated by Willis Ke
